SFI

Overview - Software Freedom International

SFI Address

• Software Freedom International
• 718 Fox Hollow Drive
• Hudson, New Hampshire
• 03051, USA.

Board of Directors

SFI

is run by a Board of Directors. The Board of Directors meets every other week for half the year and every week in the lead up to Software Freedom Day with an IRC conference to discuss various topics pertaining to the regular activities of Software Freedom International and Software Freedom Day. The minutes to these meetings are posted publicly on the website.

The Board has up to 9 elected members, and every year 3 team representatives are invited to also sit on the board in order to keep it fresh, responsive to teams and to encourage team participation in the running of Software Freedom Day internationally.

The Board can be contacted through our contact form or contacted on Questo indirizzo e-mail è protetto dallo spam bot. Abilita Javascript per vederlo.

	Frederic Muller, SFI President Country: China Founding member and former President of the Beijing LUG, member of China Open Source Promotion Union, co-organizer of many international OSS events in China such as Linux Developer Symposium (2008), the Gnome.Asia Summit, OOoCon 2008 and local SFD. Fred is now focusing on FOSS in Education. The rest of the time he is assisted in his tasks at SFI with all the board members and of course the happy members of the now famous BLUG!
	Matt Oquist, SFI Vice President and Treasurer Majen.net Consulting Country: United States Matt is the CIO of the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School. He has a few years of experience with Linux and other *NIXy operating systems, but mostly he's focused right now on Moodle, a GPL Learning Management System.
	Pockey Lam, SFI Secretary Country: China Pockey is the founding member of SFDChina.org, GNOME.Asia, College OSS Society and Beijing GNOME User Group. She is also Greenboard VP, an Free and Open Source project focusing on Open Education, and has been very active implementing it in schools in China to attract more teachers to use and built open content. She was also the Vice President and President of Beijing Linux User Group from 2007 to early 2010. To be able to spend so much time on FOSS she is also founder and consultant at dao² Inc. Check out her bio and blog for more details.
	JM C. Bitanga UP Linux Users Group (UnPLUG) Country: Philippines JM was introduced to Linux in their introductory programming class at the University of the Philippines - back in 2002. From then on after seeing the "light" about its "ideals", he ventured on what he describe as a continuing and exhilarating journey about what he believes as the future of computing and cyberspace i.e. FOSS, GNU/Linux, Open Standards, Open Content, and the like.
	Jan Husar Country: Slovakia Jan is is a Slovak activist, marine biologist and journalist. Active in international Free/Libre and Open Source Software since 2000. Founded Digital Standards Organization and Slovak Open Source Initiative, also works with European institutions and as a hobby helps free software in Kosovo and Albania.

Com'è nata SFI (SFD)?

Sometime in January of 2004, Matt Oquist concluded that...

1Free Software had improved to the point of being suitable for public use, and

2public ignorance was one of the primary roadblocks to public acceptance.

He remembers driving past a retail store that he knew had piles of AOL CDs lying around, and he thought to himself that a CD filled with software such as Open Office, Firefox, and the GIMP would be of vastly greater value to the public. He planned to burn such CDs and try to get permission to distribute them at the retail store in question.

After contacting his local LUG regarding this idea he was referred to TheOpenCD project, which maintains a CD of high-quality Free Software for Windows that matched Matt's (so far vague) vision. Matt proposed the idea of an international day of handing out Free Software CDs in TheOpenCD forums, and project leader Henrik Omma and project contributor Phil Harper both shared this vision and began collaborating immediately.

After considering several proposals of dates, names, and logistics, Henrik, Phil, and Matt agreed on "Software Freedom Day" because they believed that ultimately, everyone without a vested interest in proprietary software can unite to educate the worldwide public about the ideals of Software Freedom and the practical benefits of Free Software. August 28th, 2004, was the first annual Software Freedom Day.

Henrik, Phil, and Matt recruited Fred Noronha and Jules Sidenburg to have the required total of five board members to found a non-profit corporation in the state of New Hampshire, USA.

Since that time the board has been pleased to welcome Sidsel Jensen, Joe O.A Olutuase, Benjamin Mako Hill, Robert Schumann, Pia Waugh, Frederic Muller and many more who bring a wealth of energy and experience to the organization.